The Tampa Bay Lightning look for their fifth straight win when they visit the Utah Mammoth on Sunday afternoon in Salt Lake City.
The Mammoth saw their seven-game winning streak end with a 6-3 loss at the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday. They’ll look to rebound at home, where they have won all four of their games.
Utah is tied for seventh (2.73) in goals allowed and the Lightning are tied for 10th (2.82) entering play on Saturday.
Tampa Bay continued its recent surge with a 2-1 overtime win against the Dallas Stars on Thursday.
“You look at some of the games we won early in the season, it was only one, but it was just too much risk and we were feeding other teams’ rushes and feeding them chances,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We’ve changed the way we’ve played and changed our mentality and the losses have turned into wins.”
Anthony Cirelli scored on a breakaway in overtime, Brandon Hagel tallied for the third straight game and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves.
“It’s a crazy game. You can’t get too high and you can’t get too low,” Cirelli said. “We’ve just got to keep continuing, getting better in practices, getting better when watching our video and just taking it one game at a time.”
Hagel has seven points (three goals, four assists) in his past four games.
Vasilevskiy has won three straight starts while allowing a total of four goals.
The Mammoth have been enjoying a four-day break since ending a four-game road trip in Edmonton.
Logan Cooley, JJ Peterka and Barrett Hayton scored for the Mammoth and Karel Vejmelka made 18 saves.
“I thought we did a good job through this last stretch in staying pretty even-keeled,” Hayton said.
” … I think we’ve got to flush it the next day, understand that this last stretch has been a lot of good and a lot to build on, and we just need to get that mindset back.”
Peterka has six points (two goals, four assists) in his past four games.
Nick Schmaltz extended his point streak to eight games (seven goals, eight assists), and Dylan Guenther (assist) increased his streak to six games (three goals, five assists).
“I’m looking forward to seeing next game,” Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said. “How that game will have affected us, but I’m really confident. I’m extremely confident in our group and the maturity in our group. We were not expecting to win the rest of the way. We knew adversity will happen; it’s part of the growth. I like the fight in our guys.”
Cooley has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his past four games. He will be playing his first game since signing an eight-year, $80 million contract extension on Wednesday.
Vejmelka has allowed 11 goals over his past three starts.
